Mehdi Hasan of Al Jazeera English took Trump pal Erik Prince apart in two minutes. American media: Watch and learn
By Bob Cesca
Salon (3/12/19)
“He can’t keep getting away with it!” was one of the lines from “Breaking Bad” in which Aaron Paul’s award-winning acting talents were on full soul-crushing display. In the climactic scene from season five, episode 12, Paul’s Jesse Pinkman cries out in mid-nervous breakdown over the fact that Bryan Cranston’s Walter White indeed keeps getting away with one murderously bad decision after another.
Somehow, Donald Trump and his crew of mostly incompetent co-conspirators seemingly keep getting away with it — flooding the zone with one trespass after another, against the rule of law or against democratic norms or against common decency. To varying extents, we’re all Jesse Pinkman these days, raging for justice and fighting against the slowly metastasizing normalization of Trumpism.
The audience laughed out loud at this stupid, crap-on-a-stick excuse by a conspirator whose motives are clear and whose collusion has been independently verified.
With the exception of a few fearless White House reporters, the press has mostly been hectored into submission when directly challenging the Trump team. Credit where credit is due: Playboy’s Brian Karem and CNN’s Jim Acosta have each risked their posts by refusing to be silenced mid-question by Trump’s stumpy-fingered bullying. Likewise, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell have been particularly relentless in their coverage of the Trump crisis. The print press has provided volumes of reporting along these lines too, but too many White House journalists continue to lose their nerve when battered by Trump’s cowardly aggression against what he calls “the enemies of the people.” (Everything he says and does telegraphs his guilt.)
Into this void comes Mehdi Hasan of Al Jazeera English, host of the program “Head to Head.” Erik Prince, the former Blackwater CEO, Trump lackey and brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, made the wonderful mistake of appearing on Hasan’s show. I’m sure he regrets the hell out of it now. Here’s why. …
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